


The Slums

by CueCalmCatastrophe



Category: bts
Genre: Fluff, Jin - Freeform, M/M, Rm, Slums, Smut, Yoongi - Freeform, brothel, bts - Freeform, hoseok - Freeform, jeongguk - Freeform, jhope - Freeform, jimin - Freeform, jungkook - Freeform, mafia, namjoon - Freeform, rap monster - Freeform, suga - Freeform, taehyung - Freeform, v - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-19
Updated: 2018-07-19
Packaged: 2019-06-12 17:27:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15344835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CueCalmCatastrophe/pseuds/CueCalmCatastrophe
Summary: Jeon Jeongguk, Park Jimin, and Kim Taehyung live in the slums of a lawless city overrun by street gangs and crime lords. Taehyung is determined to escape. Jeongguk is determined to find Jimin. Together  they try to accomplish their goals and slowly get closer to one another in the process. Meanwhile, Jimin is being pursued by the ruthless mafioso Min Yoongi.





	1. Chapter 1

(A/N: My cat dipped his whole paw in my coffee.)

  _ **JEONGGUK**_ ****

There are four very important rules of survival in the slums: Run quickly. Watch your back. Trust yourself. Always have a weapon.  
Right now, my life depended heavily on the first rule.  
My heart thudded against my ribcage. My lungs yearned for air. My eyes began to water. Men leered at me from doorways; their cigarettes glowed like monsters' eyes in the dark.  
Cast aside crumpled wrappers, half-finished cigarettes, a dead animal—too far gone to determine what it once was, carpets of glass made by bottles smashed by drunk men, all passed by in a blur.  
I knew I was bound to run into a dead end eventually. My mind raced to think about where I was going. Like an intricate maze, deteriorating buildings twisted into themselves—narrow and damp. Glowing signs and graffitied walls were the only indicator of where I've been, but no assistance for where I was headed.  
Like a pack of wolves, Hangmun and his followers chased me: frantic, fast, and together. If they took a moment to break apart and close me in, I wouldn't have a chance. Luckily, they never thought of that, allowing me to slip into cracks unnoticed.  
To be an orphan in this city—without a roof or family—is a death sentence. An automatic ticket to the grave. You are seen as a waste of space. Extra baggage. Unnecessary. So the locals have no problem wth gangs sweeping the streets for undesirables, like myself, and getting rid of them.  
Although I am being pursued, I know better than to call for help—and so do they. Yelling attracts attention. Attention attracts the Brotherhood. The only noises we made were hard breaths and gritted footsteps.  
I began to recognize my surroundings. We were entering my territory. The west section of the city. I was familiar with every corner I dashed past. I knew exactly which alleyway I needed to enter. It was coming up soon, just a few long strides away. I slid by Mrs. Nudeul's restaurant. Its warm, homey scents of chicken, garlic, and noodles stirred a feeling of hunger within me. Next to it was Mr. I's chair, where people got their rotten teeth pulled. Then there was Mr. Muyeog's secondhand trader's shop, it's entrance was guarded with thick metal bars. Mr. Muyeog himself squatted on the front steps. Feet flat. He sneered as I ran past.  
A sharp-eyed boy slouched on the opposite stoop, picking at a styrofoam bowl of seafood noodles. My stomach growled, and I thought of how easy it would be to snatch it away. I kept running.  
I couldn't afford to stop. Not even for food.  
I almost missed the alleyway. My ankles nearly snapped from how sharp I turned, but I kept running. My body was turned sideways within the narrow gap between two monstrous buildings. My back and chest scraped against the cinderblock walls. I sucked in my stomach so that I could wedge through.  
I pushed myself farther in, ignoring the stinging sensation from the damp walls clawing the skin off my elbows. Rats and roaches scurried in and out of the empty spaces by my body—long past the fear of getting crushed under my feet. Hard footsteps echoed off the walls and made my ears throb. Hangmun and his boys had passed me by. For now.  
     I looked down at the boots in my hand. Sturdy leather with tough soles. They were a good steal. Worth the panic I spent running for them. Not even Mr. Gudu—the cobbler on the city's west edge, who was always bent over his bench of nails and leather—made footwear this high quality. I wondered where Hangmun got them. It had to be from a city beyond. Most nice things were.  
     Angry shouts edged into my hiding place, piling together in a mess of curses. I flinched and the trash beneath my feet shuddered. I wasn't safe just yet.  
     A boy tripped and fell, spilling into the foot of my alleyway. He was breathing hard. Blood summoned by the glass and gravel in his skin ran down his arms and legs in streaks. His ribs stuck out of the slippery blue silk of his shirt. Not the kind of attire you usually see people wear in this city, yet it looked oddly familiar.  
     My breath hitched.  
Jin?  
     He looked up and I saw his bruised face. His eyes were raw and real. They were full of fire. He was ready to fight.  
     It was Jin.  
     I shrunk into the shadows and motioned for Jin to join me. His lips pulled back, as if he wanted to speak—or bite me, I couldn't tell.  
     I never got a chance to find out.  
     Men were on him in a flash. They swooped down with their claws like vultures, yanking him to his feet by his shiny, thin shirt. The flames behind Jin's eyes grew wild. He twisted around, fingers hooked so his nails caught his nearest attacker's face.  
     The man flinched back. Four bright streaks raked down his cheek. He howled unspeakable things while he grabbed at Jin's black hair.  
     Jin didn't scream. His body kept twisting, hitting, thrashing—repeating the same desperate movements over and over. There were four men with their hands on him, but the fight wasn't an easy one. They were so busy trying to hold him down that none of them noticed me, deep in the alley's gloom. Watching.  
     Each of them grabbed onto a limb tightly. Jin bucked, his back arching upward as he spit in their faces. One of the men struck him over the head and Jin fell into an eerie, not-right stillness.  
     When he wasn't moving, it was easier to look at his captors. The Brotherhood's mark was on all four of them. Black shirts. Guns. Dragon jewelry and tattoos. One even had the red beast inked on the side of his face. It crawled all the way up his jaw, into his hairline.  
     "Son of a bitch!" the man with the nail marks growled at Jin's battered, unconscious form.  
     "Let's get him back," the one with the face tattoo said. "Yoongi is waiting."  
     It's only after they take him away, black hair sweeping the ground under his limp body, that I realized I'd been holding my breath. My hands trembled, still wrapped around the boots.  
     The fire in his eyes was unmistakable. He could've been anyone. Why did he haft to be Jin? I collapsed onto the dirty ground, exhausted.

 

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	2. Taehyung

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The plot thickens

(A/N: Almost busted my skull open. It was lit.)

 

I'm not a good person.   
If people need proof, I'll gladly show them my car or tell them my body count.   
Even when I was young, trouble stuck to me like glue. I pounded through life with the volume on high, leaving a trail of destruction behind me: broken vases, noses, cars, hearts, brain cells—side effects of dangerous living.   
     My mother always tried to reason good into me. Her favorite phrases were "Oh, Kim Taehyung, why can't you be kind?" and "You'll never find happiness if you keep acting this way!" She always said these on repeat, until her cheeks turned purple, while my younger brother stood behind her. His body language the exact dictionary entry for I told you so: arms crossed, nose scrunched, thick eyebrows piled together. I always told him his face would get stuck that way if he kept tattling: an adulthood damned by unibrow. It never really seemed to stop him.   
     My father's chosen tactic was fear. He always set his briefcase down, yanked his tie loose, and told me about this place: the Slums. A recipe of humanity's darkest ingredients-thieves, whores, murderers, addicts—all mashed into six and a half acres. Hell on earth, he called it. A place so ruthless even the sunlight won't enter. If I kept messing up, my father said, he'd drive me down there himself. Dump me off in the dens of the drug lords and thieves so I could learn my lesson.   
     My father tried his best to scare me, but even all his stories couldn't cram the goodness into me. I ended up here anyway. The irony of the whole thing would have made me laugh. But laughter is something that belonged to my life before this. In the shiny skyscrapers and shopping malls and taxi-tangle of Seoul.  
Six hundred and nine. That's how many days I'd been trapped in this cesspool of humanity.   
Eighteen. That's how many days I had left to find a way out.   
I had a plan—an elaborate, risky-as-hell plan—but I was missing one crucial component. A runner. A fast one.   
I wasn't even halfway done with my bowl of jjampong when a kid zips past my stoop. He was there and gone, running faster than some of the star track athletes at my old school.   
"Kid's at it again." Mr. Muyeog grunted. His turtle gaze ambled back down the street. "Wonder who he snitched from this time. Half the shops round here lost stuff to that one. Never tried these bars, though. Only buys."  
I was just putting my chopsticks down when the others barreled past. Hangmun was at the front of the pack, cross-eyed with focus and rage. I struck him off my list of prospective runners a long time ago. He was cruel, ruthless, and a bit dumb. I had no use for someone like that.   
But the other kid might have fit the profile. If only I could catch him.   
I left the rest of the noodles on the step, yanked up my sweatshirt hood, and followed.   
Hangmun's gang jogged for a few minutes before coming to a stop. Heads swiveled around, eyes wide and lungs panting. Whoever they were looking for, it was clear they lost him.   
I slowed and ducked to the side of the street. None of the breathless boys saw me. They were too busy cowering away from the royally pissed off Hangmun.   
"Where'd he go? Where the hell did he go?" the vagrant screamed, kicking an empty beer can. It landed against a wall with a tiny crash; an entire family of cockroaches exploded up the cinderblock. My skin crawled at the sight. Funny. After all I'd been through, all I'd seen, bugs still bothered me.   
Hangmun didn't notice the insects. He was fuming, lashing out at trash and walls and boys. His followers flinched back, all of them tried their hardest to not be the inevitable scapegoat.   
He turned to them. "Who was on watch?"   
No one answered. Not that I blamed them. The vagrant's knuckles were curled and his arms were shaking. "Who was on the damn watch?"  
"Hoseok," the boy closest to Hangmun's fists piped up. The guy in question threw his hands up in instant surrender. "I'm sorry, boss! It won't happen again, I swear."  
The leader stepped forward, closing in on the trembling Hoseok. His fists were tight, thirsty for a fight.   
My hands dug deep into the pockets of my hoodie. I felt pity for Hoseok, but not enough to do anything. I couldn't afford to get involved in other people's problems. Not when I was running out of time to solve my own.   
Hangmun looked like he was about to punch the poor guy's face in. None of the others tried to stop him. They cowered, stared, and waited as the oldest vagrant's fist rose up until it was level with Hoseok's nose, then it hovered still.   
"Who was it? Huh?" Hangman asks."I'm guessing you got a look at him."  
"Yeah, yeah, yeah." Hoseok nodded furiously. It was sad. He was so eager, all of them. Blindly allowing Hangmun to dominant all of them. If they had lived in a civilized world—played football, and sang karaoke with their friends—they'd probably have a different leader. One with more brains than brawn.   
But this was the Slums. Muscles and fear ruled here. Survival of the fittest at its finest.   
"It was Jeongguk. He's stolen a bunch of stuff from us before. A tarp. A shirt," Hoseok goes on. "You know. The one who showed up from beyond a few years back? The one with the missing friends..."   
Hangmun snarls. "I don't care about his missing friends. I care about my boots!"  
His boots?  
I looked down and realized the hulking boy was barefoot. There was blood on his feet from his race through the filthy streets. Nicks from glassshards and gravel. Maybe even discarded needles.   
No wonder he was so pissed off.   
Hoseok's back ramrods straight against the wall. His face was all scrunched up, like he was about to cry. "I'll get those boots back, I promise!"  
"I can take care of that myself."  
The older guy's fist falls. The thud of knuckle on jaw was loud and awful. Hangmun kept punching—again and again—until Hoseok's face was almost as dark as his greasy hair. It was a hard thing to watch. Way more unsettling than a few bugs.   
I could've stopped it. I could've reached for my weapon, and watched Hangmun's gang scatter like roaches. My fingers twitched and burned with every new punch, but I kept them shoved deep into my pockets.  
     People died everyday on the streets—their lives sliced short by hunger, disease, or knives. I couldn't save them all. And if I didn't keep my head down, do what needed to be done in eighteen days, I wouldn't even be able to save myself.   
     That's what I told myself, over and over, as I watched Hoseok's face break apart, all blood and bruises.   
     I'm not a good person.   
     "Take off your boots," Hangmun snarled after his fists stopped landing.   
     Hoseok was on the ground, whimpering. "Please..."  
     "Take them off before I beat them off you!"   
     Hoseok's fingers shook as he unlaced his shoes, barely managing to get them off. Hangmun snatched them up and put them on his own bloody feet. The vagrant started talking to the rest of the boys while he tried on his new boots.   
     "Any of you guys know where this Jeongguk kid camps?"  
     All he got in response was shaking heads and blank stares.   
     "You and you, I want you two to find out where he sleeps. I'm gonna get my boots back." Hangmun's last sentence was more of a growl.   
     The streets bursted alive with yells. At first I thought it was Hoseok, but the battered, barefoot guy was just as surprised as the rest of them. They looked down the street all at once, necks whipping around like those meerkat animals that used to pop up on my brother's favorite nature show.   
     The yells were from elsewhere, back where my noodles were getting cold on the door stoop. So many men screaming all at once could only mean one thing. The Brotherhood.   
     It was time to leave.   
     Hangmun's pack must have been thinking the same thing, because in an instant, they were scrambling to retreat. Away from the screams. Away from Hoseok. Away from me.   
     "Please! Don't leave me!" Hoseok reached out, his whimper beyond pathetic.   
     "Don't bother coming back to camp." Hangmun spit down at the guy, the outcast, before he disappeared for good. I couldn't help but wonder what would happen to the battered guy. If he was anything like Hangmun's other guys, his familial status reads orphaned or parents too broke to fill his rice bowl. People with roofs and hot food had better things to do than play survival of the thuggiest. No family, shoeless, broken face, winter was in full swing...  
     Granted, it was a mild one (it always was), but chilly temperatures still bite when you don't even have socks.   
     Hoseok's odds weren't looking too good.   
     I started walking with my hood up and my hands shoved in my pockets, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible. I blended into the dark of the side alley just as the Brotherhood men passed. The man they were dragging was more blood than skin. His hair was loose, weeping all over the ground. His shirt was sheen and silk: one of the brothel boys. He must've been trying to run. What I was seeing was an escape gone horribly wrong.   
     The jjampong kicked up hell in my gut. I pushed away, farther into the dark bowels of the city, leaving him to face his fate.   
     I couldn't save them all.   
Jeongguk. The one with the missing friend. It wasn't much to go on in hive of thirty-three hundred people, but Mr. Muyeog seemed to recognize him. My first lead. I'd haft to move fast, find him before Hangmun sniffed out where the kid kept his tarp. He must have been a loner, which meant, considering what had happened to Hoseok, that he was smart. Smart and fast. Plus he lasted a few years on the streets—which is hard to do in Seoul, let alone the hellhole that is the Slums.   
     He was just the kind of kid I was looking for. One more step to my ticket out of the Slums.   
     I just hoped he was willing to play the part.

 

Any questions or concerns? Don't be afraid to ask. If you wanna see more, please leave a like. (:

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See ya in the next chapter!


	3. Jimin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> My poor boy

(A/N: Mom was right. It was sun poisoning.)

 

There is no escape.   
     Those were the first words the brothel master, Min Yoongi, spoke to me the night the Reapers pulled me out of their van—after endless hours of rutted roads and windowless darkness. I was still wearing my pajamas I'd pulled over my head days and days before—a scratchy, black button up with matching bottoms. A few of the boys and girls beside me were crying. I...I felt nothing. I was someone else. I was not the boy who had been snatched from the streets. I was not the one who stood at the front of the line, waiting as a man with a long purple scar on his jaw inspected us. I was not Park Jimin.   
     That night, when the master got to me, he stared, inspecting me at every angle. I felt the crawl of his eyes on my skin, like insects creeping into hidden places. Places they shouldn't go.   
     "Him," he told the Reapers' leader.   
     We watched as the coins changed their hands, more money than I'd ever seen in my short life, despite growing up with money.   
     "There's no escape. Forget about your past. Forget about everything." The master's voice was flat, passionless. As dead as his heavy, opium eyes. "You're mine now."  
     Those are the words I was trying my hardest not to remember when Miss Simjang called, "Boys?"  
     I was sitting on my bed. Dread snaked through my veins, and I looked at the others. Maedallin was by the foot of the bed, a messy cross-stich was dangling from his fingers. Kkalgae was sitting on the rug, and Meolitti kneeled behind him, weaving short braids into his dark brown hair. Meolitti was the only one who didn't freeze at the sound of Miss Simjang's voice. His fingers kept moving, tucking strands of Kkalgae's hair in and out and into themselves again.   
Kkalgae's mouth was still open, cut off mid sentence from one of his endless, remarkable descriptions of the sea. I tried to imagine what waves looked like when Miss Simjang appeared in the doorway.   
Miss Simjang—the keeper of both boys and girls. The one who fed and dressed us. The one who called the doctor when we were sick. The one who ran the brothel and matched clients to our beds. Some say she was brought here like the rest of us: in the back of one of the Reapers' vans. Back when she had smooth skin and a straight back. Now her face was pinched in all the wrong places. Her eyes were distant.   
"Boys. Master Yoongi wants to see you. Now. He's closed off the lounge." Miss Simjang darted out of the doorway as suddenly as she came, off to gather the boys and girls from the next three halls.   
"He got caught." Kkalgae, the youngest and smallest of us, sounded like a baby bird. His voice was fluttery and weak.   
Meolitti pulled his hair so tight that he squeaked. "None of you breathe a word. If Master Yoongi and Miss Simjang find out that we knew Jin's plan...it won't end well." He looked to me as he said this, searching for words of support.   
"We say nothing." I said, trying to sound as old as my twenty-two years should have made me, but the truth was that I felt just like the rest of them: shaky and whiter than rice noodles.   
I didn't know why I was so rattled. I knew this would happen. All of us did. That's why we tried to get Jin to stay.   
There is no escape. There is no escape. We whispered the master's words to him like a chorus, along with dozens of reasons. Here, he had clothing, food, water, friends. Out there he had nothing. Well, nothing but hunger, disease, and unforgiving streets with teeth like wolves.   
But in the end, there was no stopping him. I'd seen it months ago, the wildness that started in his eyes when he talked about life before this. It spread into everything, lit him up inside. Every time he entered my room, he would pull aside my scarlet curtain and stare, stare, stare out the window—the only one in the entire brothel. He was never good at keeping everything balled up inside like the rest of us. Meolitti thought this was because Jin's family didn't sell him. He had a taste of freedom and independence, then was caged like a bird. Or rather, chained like a dog.   
We found Jin spread out on the floor of the smoking lounge. His hair was wild and torn. His arms bent back at an awful angle. I didn't know for sure if he'd wake up or even be alive. One of the master's men propped him up. Blood, bright red, shined down his arms and legs. There was blood on his face, too, smudged on his cheeks and the edge of his lips. His shirt—a beautiful piece of blue silk and embroidered with cherry blossoms—was ruined.   
The rest of us stood in a line as Master Yoongi paced a slow, endless circle around Jin's fetal frame. When he finally stopped, the tips of his lounge slippers were turned toward us.   
He didn't yell. Which made his words all the more terrifying. "Do any of you know what it's like out there for a vagrant? For the other working girls?"  
Not one of us replied, though we all knew the answer. It's one Miss Simjang drilled into us every single time she saw our faces whither with emptiness. The one we tried so hard to make Jin remember.   
"Pain. Disease. Death." The words left him like punches. When he was finished, he brought his pipe to his lips. Smoke poured out of his nostrils—reminding me of the scarlet dragon embroidered on his lounging jacket. "How do you think you'd do out there, on your own? Without my protection?"   
He didn't really want an answer. It was rhetorical.   
"I give every single one of you everything you could need. I give you the best. All I ask for in return is that you make our guests feel welcome. It's such a small thing. Such a tiny request."   
Just the fact that the master was addressing us should have made my blood run cold. Miss Simjang was always the one who punished us, with hissing lips and the sharp backside of her calloused hand. The few times the master did talk to us, he always made a point to remind us of how we were treated better than other working boys and girls. We had our own rooms, silk clothes, trays of tea, and incense even. Our choice of meals. Pots of paint to decorate our faces. We had everything because we were the chosen. The best of the best.   
"Now, Jin here"—he said his name in a way that crawled under my skin—"has just spit in the face of my generosity. I gave him safety and luxury, and he threw it away like it was nothing. He insulted my honor. My name."  
Jin sat behind him, still bleeding and shaking. The men in black were breathing hard. I wonder how far he got before they caught him.   
Master Yoongi snapped his fingers. All four of his henchmen pulled Jin to his feet. He flopped like a doll in their hands. "If you dishonor my hospitality, break the rules, you will be punished. If you insist on being treated as a common prostitute, then that's what I'll do."  
He rolled up his sleeves. The man with the scarlet tattoo on his face gave the master something I couldn't fully see.   
But Jin saw it, and when he did, he let out a shriek that could have woke the gods. He came to life again, with kicks and jerks so powerful that the men holding him down couldn't stand still.   
His screams managed to meld into words. "No!" Please! I'm sorry! I won't run!"  
Then Yoongi held up his hand, and I saw the reason for Jin's terror. A needle. A syringe full of dirty brown liquid.   
The other boys and girls saw it too. Even Miss Simjang grew stiff beside me. There was no way of knowing what was inside the plastic tube. Pain? Disease? Death?  
Jin fights and flails, his screams rose far beyond words. In the end, the men were too strong for him.   
I couldn't watch when the sharp metal plowed into his veins. When his screams stopped—when I finally looked up again—the needle was gone and Jin was on the floor, crumpled and shuddering. The shadows of the lounge crowded around his curled form, making him look broken.   
The Master Yoongi's hands brushed together. He turned to us. "The first dose of heroin is always the best. The second time, the rush isn't as strong. But you still need it. You need more and more and more until it's everything you want. Everything you are."  
Heroin. He meant to make an addict out of our kind and brave Jin. The thought twisted inside me: hollow and hopeless.   
"You are mine." Master looked down our line of submission. His eyes focused on me. He was smiling. "All of you. If you try to run, this is your fate."  
I closed my eyes. Tried not to look at the broken-doll boy on the floor. Tried not to remember the words master spoke into the night so long ago. They reach out of time, out of the dark, to bind me like ropes: There is no escape.

 

Any questions or concerns? Don't be afraid to ask. If you want more, please leave a like. (:

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See ya in the next chapter!

**Author's Note:**

> See ya in the next chapter!


End file.
